I’ve been reading it more carefully.
There is some nice emphasis on backgrounds. I like that. There was very little in the 1e Players Handbook. 2e introduced more non-weapon proficiency skills, which was good. This new edition seems to give a nice method of using such skills. I like that.
I feel like the Dragonborn and Tiefling PC races are a bit over the top for PCs. In particular, the Dragonborn have a frickin’ breath weapon. I would probably allow a PC to be a Tiefling, but I think I’d not allow the Dragonborn race. It’s just too stupid.
Non-Human PCs have a lot of racial abilities like dark vision, etc., and they get to add points to one or more characteristics. And of course they no longer have limits on either class selection or level achievement. This would seem to make humans really really suck. BUT — Humans get to add a +1 to every one of their ability scores right off the bat. So that is not too bad.
I love the changes to the magic system, and I think the division of magic-users into Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards is good. They are nice and distinct, and it makes sense.
At this point, I think that once you get over the slick and glitzy look of the new book, the game looks like it is pretty good.
This weekend I’m going to use the adventure and pregenerated characters in the starter set to run some practice combats, and see how it works out.